


Aftermath

by JeremyWritesAFiction



Category: Outstanding! (Podcast), Protean City Comics (Podcast)
Genre: Body Horror, Crimes & Criminals, Discussion of Kids in Danger, Feels, Gen, Lightshow: The Darkest Light, Outstanding! Finale Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:48:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29945415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeremyWritesAFiction/pseuds/JeremyWritesAFiction
Summary: No but really, there are spoilers here for the Outstanding! finale -- if you have not listened to that yet, then ABSOLUTELY LISTEN TO THAT FIRST.  (Also it's just dang good, so go, we'll be here when you get back.)
Kudos: 1





	Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> No but really, there are spoilers here for the Outstanding! finale -- if you have not listened to that yet, then ABSOLUTELY LISTEN TO THAT FIRST. (Also it's just dang good, so go, we'll be here when you get back.)

11:30 PM: Well After Bedtime 

A cold glow permeates a teal bed sheet that has been carefully balanced across the backs of two tall kitchen chairs and draped over the television in the living room of PCOY. There is an apex in the center of the sheet -- a slightly raised cone which gives the whole arrangement the impression of a circus tent -- the kid’s sail is obvious. The soft sounds of cheesy music are just barely audible, along with the even softer voice of Marlin Traeger as he hums along with the opening strains of _Lightshow: The Darkest Light_.

Sage Prince leans against a wall in the shadows of the hallway, arms folded, and considers whether or not to call him out for breaking curfew. On the one hand, she’s the adult here -- _How weird is that?_ \-- and it’s technically her job to shuffle him back off to bed. On the other, the kids have been through a lot lately and Mar is obviously trying not to wake anyone up. She closes her eyes and wonders how many times Lunar Lens might have asked herself this same question. It’s not like Sage never broke curfew when she was one of PCOY’s wards. The television whines softly.

_“Sometimes... when the light is the darkest...”_

Sage rolls her eyes. What do the kids even see in this show? She looks back over at Mar’s sheet slash tent slash fort and sees that his sail is slowly moving back and forth, the kid’s positively rocking with excitement. She smiles softly to herself and turns back towards her room. Maybe this time she just doesn’t notice. This time.

11:30 PM: Across Town 

Windshear stands on the corner of a rooftop, watching three kids -- late teens, if that -- load wooden crates into the back of a dark van with no license plate. In one hand, he grips the crumpled front page of this morning’s Protean City Herald -- _Tween Heroes Foil Jailbreak!_ On the street below, two of the kids are climbing into the back of the van. One shuts the doors and bangs on them a few times, three hard raps which reverberate up the concrete corridor of the street like so many gunshots. He walks around to hop into the driver’s seat. The van’s engine cranks.

Things used to be simple. The villains were obvious, their goals straightforward. Take over the city, rob the bank, use an army of deadly robots to kidnap the mayor. Morality which you could grasp in the moment. Problems that you could solve by punching. But everything is shades of grey now. Take these kids in the van -- which, Windshear notes, is starting to drive away. He jumps off of the roof, a gust of air propelling him forward faster than the vehicle can accelerate -- a twist, another burst of air to redirect his momentum towards the ground, and Windshear sticks a perfect three-point landing in front of the van.

Take these kids in the van. Windshear knows they’ve made some bad choices -- they’re hauling weapons, not that they know that. All they know is that someone in a suit gave them money and told them to take some crates from point A to point B. Windshear knows that these kids needed that money. Some of them have families to support. Some of them don’t even have that. Their actions are just links in a chain of desperate decisions necessitated by an increasingly shitty world. Are they villains? Or are they victims? If they don’t understand the context of their actions, should they be punished for them?

It doesn’t matter. Windshear looks up, the sharp edge of his determination meeting the driver’s gaze. The van’s tires screech painfully as the kid behind the wheel throws it into reverse. Windshear can see him clearly now. Sixteen, maybe seventeen. Dark hair tied back in a ponytail. The beginnings of a wispy moustache. There is fear in his eyes, swiftly growing into panic. Windshear knows that look. Too young for this work. Too damn young. Windshear considers letting him get away -- he can intercept this shipment later, somewhere else. None of this is the kid’s fault, he obviously doesn’t want to hurt anyone. He’s terrified of what he’s gotten himself into, this job he took that has brought the wrath of Windshear down on his head. He won’t do this again. Villain or victim? Child or criminal? Which is it? Can it be both?

Windshear propels himself forward, his arm wrapped in a coating of air that coalesces to a gale-force, ripping the van’s windshield apart and scattering the pane in all directions. Tiny shards of safety-glass embed themselves into the dark, pebbled surface of the street. The kid floors the gas, trying to turn away from Windshear and skidding into a lamppost instead. Windshear pulls him out and snarls in the kid’s face.

“Where's your drop-off point? Who do you work for?”

It’s a script he’s performed so many times that the words are rote. The problem is, it all feels wrong now. These aren’t hardened adult criminals with simple goals. Windshear is the adult here and this poor kid... he’s terrified. He stammers out a reply between pleas for mercy, but Windshear’s mind is somewhere else entirely. It’s not just the villains who are getting younger. Theirs aren’t the only actions born of desperate and unconscionable necessity. _Tween Heroes Foil Jailbreak!_ The van’s back doors pop open. The other two kids dart out, hoods pulled up to obscure their features. They scramble towards an alley, and Windshear lets them go. This time.

Midnight: Under A Tent 

The ending theme of _Lightshow: The Darkest Light_ blares almost silently. Marlin’s turned the volume down so much that he can barely hear it anymore, but it’s either that or risk waking up Sage. He hasn’t been paying too much attention anyway, it’s a rerun. He keeps going back to last night. Elliot flying up into the air holding Adam Trace, and all of Elliot’s rage and pain and confusion at his father washing through Mar’s mind. Marlin looks down at his hands, scaled and clawed and barely even hands anymore. Little suckers are beginning to form along the creases of his fingers, the bones inside dissolving into cartilaginous jelly. He takes a deep breath and wills them back to normal. Eventually they cooperate, but it takes longer than Mar would like.

The events of last night are obviously still affecting the both of them, but Elliot more. Mar had to wake him up earlier -- Elliot’s telekinetic abilities were getting out of control and shaking the water out of Mar’s tank. Usually both of them would have snuck out to watch Lightshow. Elliot’s not as big a fan as Mar, but he plays along for his friend. Mar couldn’t bring himself to wake Elliot up again tonight.

Marlin wraps his arms around his knees, hugging them to his chest and trying to make himself small enough to fit under the sheet without brushing against it -- it never works anymore, but he always tries.

Elliot has been more quiet and withdrawn than usual. Mar wishes he knew how to help. Maybe if he was like Cesaro, with his beautiful wings and boundless confidence. Or if he was like Max, so brave and sure of himself... If he could be anyone or anything but what he was, maybe he could do something to help. He shakes his head and tries to banish those thoughts. He’s not his body. He’s not his body. He’s himself. _Not his body._ Elliot needs him to keep it together. He can’t break down again. He can’t let everyone down again. No more running away.

Midnight: Outside PCOY 

Hermosa Vida stands impatiently, hands in the pockets of her light windbreaker, across the street from the Protean City Home for Outstanding Youth. She knows that Ramón will be here sooner or later, and she doesn’t feel as if it’s likely to be later. When he left their home tonight, she could tell. The Herald’s front page news had been weighing on him. Nine of PCOY’s kids, not even in high school yet, fighting off an organized effort to free a group of dangerous adult criminals from a super-max prison -- by tomorrow morning, just another blip in the twenty-four hour news cycle of Protean City. He’d read and re-read it, trying to mask his growing anger and horror behind shop-talk about the villains who'd escaped. Sooner or later, someone would have to do something about Bloodomancer.

Behind the sharp analysis, though, Rosalinda Castillo-Valdez could see the wheels turning in Ramón's head. She could sense his horror that children this young were getting embroiled in the all-too-dangerous world of which he’d been a part for most of his life, and his anger at the Herald’s positive spin on the whole affair. But he'd forced those reactions down and went out into the night to punch something. She sometimes wishes her husband could just talk through his feelings. Instead, he does this.

A gust of wind kicks up the debris along the street, small bits of paper swirling along the avenues and announcing his arrival. Hermosa Vida spots him easily -- looming on the rooftop across from PCOY, because of course he is. She reaches out to a nearby tree, and it responds to her -- lowering a branch to lift her up towards the roof above where Windshear stares daggers at the building across from him. It takes him a moment to realize that she’s there.

“Rosalinda?” He takes a step back as she hops off of the branch and onto the roof. “What are you doing h-”

She cuts him off with a sharp turn of her eyes, dimming from a brightly glowing green back to their normal brown as she releases the tree from her will.

“No, Ramón, what are _you_ doing here?” Her voice is soft, but insistent. “You’re, what, going to go kick in the door of an orphanage in the middle of the night to give Sage Prince a piece of your mind? _Think_ , Ramón. Think about what you’re doing.”

Windshear -- Ramón Castillo -- paces across the roof, the tension in him coming out in small bursts of air and causing eddies of dust to whirl across the roof. He stops and turns towards Hermosa Vida.

“Someone has to say something. Someone has to hold her accountable.” He runs a hand up through his hair, then gestures accusingly at the silhouette of PCOY. “Nine kids, Rosalinda. Children! They could have died!”

“Do you think she doesn’t know that?” Hermosa Vida raises an eyebrow and steps forward, pointing a finger into his chest. “What do you think breaking in there and shouting at her is going to accomplish?”

Windshear turns, brushing away her touch. He closes his eyes for a long moment and the night's earlier events play back in his head.

“It’s not like that. They can’t just... this can’t happen again.” He grimaces and looks across the rooftop, then glances back over his shoulder. “There have to be consequences. You don’t just get to lose track of nine kids, you don’t get to let them go off to fight Dr. Devilis alone and pretend like everything is fine.”

“Nobody’s acting like it’s fine, Ramón.” Hermosa Vida puts an arm around Windshear’s waist and leans her head against his shoulder. “But you don’t need to bust in, guns-blazing, and read everyone the riot act. That won’t help anyone. What’s this really about?”

He stiffens for a moment, and the air around them holds its breath. And then Ramón Castillo -- Windshear -- swallows hard.

“They’re too young. We failed them, Rosalinda. Me, you, Sage Prince, every god damn _responsible adult_ in their lives failed them.” The moonlight glistens off his cheeks and he turns away from it, looking down towards his wife. “What they went through alone... someone should have been there.”

Rosalinda Castillo-Valdez embraces Windshear and buries her head in his chest. Her arms circle around him tightly. She nods, and the motion of it pierces him to the bone. The two of them stand there, together in the lonely moonlight, watching over the Protean City Home for Outstanding Youth. Inside, diffused through a bed sheet, the barely perceptible glow of a television winks off.


End file.
